born in 1948 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, has covered Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia since 1979 and has written five books including »Taliban« (2000; dt. 2001). He has been an advisor to the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, established the first media focused NGO in Kabul after 9/11 and is a regular contributor to the »Financial Times«, the »New York Review of Books« and other periodicals. In 2010, »Foreign Policy« magazine named him one of the one hundred most important global thinkers.